Literary Pixie

Yay! I’ve completed stage one – housing! Now I’m on stage two – lifestyle goals.

Although if you ask my cousin, we did not finish housing. Our kitchen is still pretty messy and I did not decorate the bathroom yet into the Feminist Toilet. Also our shower keeps flooding!

The reason that these tasks haven’t been completed yet is because they are not housing tasks, they are lifestyle tasks. With housing, it’s a one and done. You buy the table. Fixed. You move the furniture. Done!

With lifestyle, these things require constant maintenance. They are never done. And also the tasks are dependent on what kind of lifestyle I want to live, what my lifestyle needs are. They are different person to person or even week to week in response to other people in my support system.

Thus, for me to complete those housing tasks (like doing the dishes or going grocery shopping), I need to set my lifestyle goals and set up a weekly routine and system to get them done because every time I eat, I will make new dishes that I will have to clean.

I wrote out my lifestyle goals/needs – and it is so long, it is almost overwhelming. I was also trying to book my travel plans for the summer, and even those are dependent on my lifestyle needs being met, especially my purpose & contribution (aka my job-related teacher goals that I need to accomplish so I can have my psychological needs met at work – Shatterproof reference, will share more in my book review!)

I broken lifestyle into 7 sections:

1. Food and Eating
2. Exercise and Fitness
3. Play
4. Rest
5. Purpose & Contribution
6. Connection
7. Peace

I have read and learned that having a healthy lifestyle is the most important thing you can do for your health – it is essentially preventative medicine. Most of the top ten causes of death in America are 100% lifestyle caused and are thus 100% preventable. Thus just unnecessary suffering.

I’m all for suffering. I understand that life is hard and not fair and that you can’t avoid pain and suffering. However, there is literally nothing worse than unnecessary suffering. Suffering that could have easily been prevented.

I know that suffering well. That suffering is caused the last five years of my life.

• If the Cal State Teaching Programs had decided to let us redo our teaching credentials instead of passing us after doing our credentials 100% online because of COVID
• If LAUSD had actually asked me what I needed instead of dumping a bajillion online zoom PDs on me that the district created with money to help early career educators with learning gaps caused by COVID.
• If my induction mentor had seen my schedule in 2020 my first year teaching and advocated for me to have two preps as is the LAUSD policy.
• If my head of department had seen my schedule in 2020 my first year teaching and advocated for me to have two preps as is the LAUSD policy.
• If my administrator had seen my schedule in 2020 my first year teaching and advocated for me to have two preps as is the LAUSD policy.
• If my union rep had seen my schedule in 2020 my first year teaching and advocated for me to have two preps as is the LAUSD policy.

Nope! Instead I had to suffer and cope, and be resilient for five years until I hit my resilience ceiling and decided I needed to protect myself because if I didn’t I felt that I was going to die. It was survival. Life or death. Continue this and die. Or say no, get out of this situation and live.

At least that’s how it felt. Years of unnecessary suffering.

But I did it. That is now my past. I now have the two curriculums that I have been advocating and fighting for for three years since I learned about the breach of policy and realized the impact it was having on my health and quality of life, that basically no other teacher in my department was suffering from (most of the teachers had the two prep average, the head of department literally had one!!).

I keep ruminating on this, it is like PTSD. It is PTSD. It is over. It is the past. It is the past. I survived. It is over. It is over.

Okay started talking to someone at the coffee shop- a fellow LAUSD employee. It was inspiring.

However, I really need to chunk my lifestyle goals, turn them into SMART goals, and also REMOVE SOME! I can add later once I have accomplished. Thinking of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck when I write that.

Trying to do too many things or care about too many things only creates more stress and overwhelm. It is impossible to do everything. I have to say no. I have to let go of those things. I have to choose to not care.

Today, I am going to focus on making the lifestyle goal planning. As my Dad said, “Plan the work, work the plan.”

“Plan the work, work the plan.”

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PS. Here is my super long and overwhelming list of Lifestyle goals!!

Lifestyle Goals

Food & Eating Lifestyle Goals

I will eat three meals a day with one snack all vegan that I find nourishing, delicious, and energizing I will drink water every day. I will eat at yummy restaurants. I will grocery shop at farmers markets. I will make fun recipes. I will have dinner parties to share my cooking. I will have a dining club to share my food adventures with.

Exercise & Fitness Lifestyle Goals

I will go to yoga five times a week. I will go hiking in Griffith Park once a week. I will take a dance class once a week. I will go on nice walks.

Play Lifestyle Goals

I will see a play every month  I will see a movie once a month I will go to a concert four times a year I will go to comedy shows four times a year I will visit and enjoy a museum four times a year I will attend literary events and book club once a month I will go to interesting lectures and explore Los Angeles and its history I will work on my writing projects and passion projects I will create the Los Feliz Writers Festival I will have time to play and be silly and explore and go on adventures and research whatever I’m interested in I want time and energy to meet new people and try new things.

Rest Lifestyle Goals

I will have nights when I am home and rest/ go to yoga/ go to bed early, watch silly TV shows I will get 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep every night I will have time to take a walk, write, and drink my coffee in the morning peacefully.

Purpose & Contribution Lifestyle Goals

to focus on my health and read the books to improve my physical and mental health, posture To research what I want to research and share my research and learning with people in ways that help others FInish my book and get an agent/book deal to publish it Write articles for the newspaper/magazines and be seen as a respected expert in my field Work at a school that supports my  curriculum and allows me to run/ be involved in a teen writers’ festival, poetry festival, and literature festival for Los Angeles community Understanding how a neighborhood and city functions Understand health and can be a healthy lifestyle coach/ teacher to develop my curriculum and pedagogies so that I have two curriculums that I am really proud of and can do my job well and have work-life balance teach about 21st century literacy – housing, money, health, relationships & improving the current system to update to the 21st century needs in improving quality of life for all living beings (plants, animals, and people) Climate literacy and environmental and animal activism focused curriculum to finish the screenplay with Juliana and Whitney to go on a writing retreat  to have a committed writers group to write my utopia novel To launch my US state embassy idea explore and write about cultural community in LA Organize edutainment house parties, events, and workshops to get my health teaching certification Publish my blow gift magazine To upload all my poems, blovels, and journals to the Literary Pixie BlogFinish Burnt Out Bitch

Connection Lifestyle Goals

to be part / create a culture club to create a writing group to create a dining groupto invest and nurture a friend group I will have relationships with people who enjoy doing these things with me and who have similar purpose, personal, and professional goals I will volunteer with organizations that give me meaning and make me feel like a valuable part of my community to spend quality time with friends and family to create rituals, tradition, meditation, and journaling

Peace Lifestyle Goals

Time to do my holistic reflections and journaling Time to organize my time and weeks and relationships and put them in order Time to appreciate the world and the beauty of things Feeling that people understand my vision and are supportive of it so that it feels easy and doable to spend time with people with a similar framework and structure to a meaningful and quality life in the 21st century